After listening to Jon Trivers audio interview on TalkFloor (see: Trivers on Stainmaster’s Shift to Lowes) where he discusses StainMaster's move to Lowes I began to think about how dealers could use their website to drive potential Stainmaster® customers to their stores.
If you go to Lowe's website and look at the flooring section you will see they are promoting $39 whole house installation on StainMaster® Carpets when you buy the carpet and padding from them. This does not include tear-up, old carpet removal, furniture moving, installing on stairs and customization. As Trivers points out in his FloorRadio interview the idea of making labor seem cheap is not smart, since we all know installing carpet is very labor-intensive and doing the seams correctly takes skill. Yet, Lowes has a great reputation in the eyes of many homeowners and have numerous reasons why homeowners frequent there.
So how do retailers use their websites to combat this? First off, your goal should be to get the consumer to visit your specialty flooring store where you can have an intelligent conversation with them and show them some of your real carpet values and carpet expertise. Whether you sell them StainMaster®, Shaw's Anso® or Mohawk's SmartStrand® Carpet doesn't really matter at this moment, the key is to use your website to help get the potential carpet shoppers to visit your store before they buy.
To get them to visit your store via your website means we have to first get local, online StainMaster® shoppers to visit your website. If you sell StainMaster® Carpets then you need to add a geo-targeted web page to your website that is dedicated to StainMaster Carpets that you offer. Otherwise, consumers don't know you sell it. Plus, you won't have a chance of getting found in the search engine results by online Stainmaster® Carpet shoppers. Be sure to make this geo-targeted, Stainmaster® Carpet landing page compelling enough so the local shoppers will want to interact with you and make your store a must visit before buying their new carpet. I know this will work because it is the kind of strategy I use at Webstream Dynamics all the time with our retail clients and have had great success.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Leveraging Your Mouse To Shop For A Vehicle
Over the past few days we decided it was time to buy my wife a new vehicle. It’s been several years since we had done any serious vehicle shopping I wasn't sure what to expect online versus offline at the dealerships.
This buying journey began by my wife first visiting a Ford dealer on her way home from work and getting some ideas what you wanted. Once she had narrowed it down to 2-3 models (slightly used) I immediately went online to learn more about the vehicle models she liked, what problems those models may have had (recalls) and then begin the process of shopping dealers. Websites like AutoTraders.com and Cars.com helped immensely to quickly see what vehicles were available in our local area. Some vehicles allowed us to see the CarFax reports for free online. (Although the CarFax tells you some things for leased vehicles it is pretty vague.)
Using the Internet to shop vehicles this quickly becomes a game of price/feature/color with no regards to dealer service or why buying from one dealer is better than another. Even visiting the actual dealer’s websites there is little or nothing about “Why buy from us?” It’s all about price and personal color preference and what features they offer for each vehicle.
The first thing I noticed while shopping is all the different dealers obviously also check the Internet before pricing any vehicle. So the Internet prices listed pretty much are all right in line with each other. The real buyer advantage happens when you start to physically go see a few dealers with printed spec sheets from the Internet. Once they know you are a web savvy shopper and have done your homework prices begin to fall. They may first say “That’s our Internet price we can’t do any better”, but in this economy and by doing thorough research online and offline you can get the price down…. sometimes dramatically! (It makes me wonder what the actual dealer cost of the vehicle was.)
My thought throughout this whole process was there was never any real discussion about what we can do for you (service wise), nor why we are the best place to buy from. It’s all about price, color and options. After all, you can get your vehicle serviced any where and chances are it may not be at that dealer. Two dealers did say “We would like to earn your business” but never offered how they would do that. They were just passing words that had no real value to us.
This leads me to my final comment… If other retailers (ie: flooring dealers) do a poor job of differentiating themselves from their competitors, if they forget to talk about their services, then they too will be in a price war. Without building your own brand value in the consumer’s mind you are strictly selling on price. After all, consumers can buy their products today just as easily online as offline.
This buying journey began by my wife first visiting a Ford dealer on her way home from work and getting some ideas what you wanted. Once she had narrowed it down to 2-3 models (slightly used) I immediately went online to learn more about the vehicle models she liked, what problems those models may have had (recalls) and then begin the process of shopping dealers. Websites like AutoTraders.com and Cars.com helped immensely to quickly see what vehicles were available in our local area. Some vehicles allowed us to see the CarFax reports for free online. (Although the CarFax tells you some things for leased vehicles it is pretty vague.)
Using the Internet to shop vehicles this quickly becomes a game of price/feature/color with no regards to dealer service or why buying from one dealer is better than another. Even visiting the actual dealer’s websites there is little or nothing about “Why buy from us?” It’s all about price and personal color preference and what features they offer for each vehicle.
The first thing I noticed while shopping is all the different dealers obviously also check the Internet before pricing any vehicle. So the Internet prices listed pretty much are all right in line with each other. The real buyer advantage happens when you start to physically go see a few dealers with printed spec sheets from the Internet. Once they know you are a web savvy shopper and have done your homework prices begin to fall. They may first say “That’s our Internet price we can’t do any better”, but in this economy and by doing thorough research online and offline you can get the price down…. sometimes dramatically! (It makes me wonder what the actual dealer cost of the vehicle was.)
My thought throughout this whole process was there was never any real discussion about what we can do for you (service wise), nor why we are the best place to buy from. It’s all about price, color and options. After all, you can get your vehicle serviced any where and chances are it may not be at that dealer. Two dealers did say “We would like to earn your business” but never offered how they would do that. They were just passing words that had no real value to us.
This leads me to my final comment… If other retailers (ie: flooring dealers) do a poor job of differentiating themselves from their competitors, if they forget to talk about their services, then they too will be in a price war. Without building your own brand value in the consumer’s mind you are strictly selling on price. After all, consumers can buy their products today just as easily online as offline.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Promoting Your Fall Sale Events
Most retailers right now have major Fall sale events going on in their brick-and-mortar stores. So are these sale events also promoted on your website? Shame on you if they are not.
Supplier Marketing Support Portals
Your website should be an extension of your store's overall marketing strategies, which means what ever you are promoting in your store should be on your website too. Some suppliers have special dealer portals where you or your web developer can login and download flyers and sale event details. Some even supply snippets of code to embed in your website that will display the sale event for you. So there is little excuse not to participate.
If your supplier has a big Fall Sale and they don't have web content for you to use on your website tell them: "Hey this is 2010! How can we support you if you can't be bothered supplying us with website digital promotional materials?" Don't let them off the hook they need to get with the times.
Be Creative
If you really want to separate yourself from your competition then be creative. Rather than just using the supplier's materials create a unique landing page promoting your Fall Sale events! Add Youtube videos, room scenes, in-store photos, etc... Make it say to your website visitors "Wow I have to go there!" You can also link to that page from your website as well as pay-per-click advertising. Plus, using analtyics you can track the page results and determine how successful it was.
Don't Be a Lemming
Bottom line, if you want your website to give you a good ROI you have to continually put some serious effort into it. If you have a supplier's templated website and you can't update it yourself I would dump it and get something you can personalize and have regularly maintained with all your latest in-store sale events, store photos, testimonials, photos of previous jobs, and unique geo-targeted content to improve your search engine ranking positions. Don't be a lemming!
Supplier Marketing Support Portals
Your website should be an extension of your store's overall marketing strategies, which means what ever you are promoting in your store should be on your website too. Some suppliers have special dealer portals where you or your web developer can login and download flyers and sale event details. Some even supply snippets of code to embed in your website that will display the sale event for you. So there is little excuse not to participate.
If your supplier has a big Fall Sale and they don't have web content for you to use on your website tell them: "Hey this is 2010! How can we support you if you can't be bothered supplying us with website digital promotional materials?" Don't let them off the hook they need to get with the times.
Be Creative
If you really want to separate yourself from your competition then be creative. Rather than just using the supplier's materials create a unique landing page promoting your Fall Sale events! Add Youtube videos, room scenes, in-store photos, etc... Make it say to your website visitors "Wow I have to go there!" You can also link to that page from your website as well as pay-per-click advertising. Plus, using analtyics you can track the page results and determine how successful it was.
Don't Be a Lemming
Bottom line, if you want your website to give you a good ROI you have to continually put some serious effort into it. If you have a supplier's templated website and you can't update it yourself I would dump it and get something you can personalize and have regularly maintained with all your latest in-store sale events, store photos, testimonials, photos of previous jobs, and unique geo-targeted content to improve your search engine ranking positions. Don't be a lemming!
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